By now you’ve probably heard that the wealthy developer/real estate lobbying group Mile Square Taxpayers Association (MSTA) pulled out all the stops and falsehoods, overturning our 2012 rent control election victory in the courtroom. Once again the citizens of Hoboken must go to the polls and tell this lobbying group that we will not let them harm our town. Last year the Hoboken Fair Housing Association (HFHA) shared the reasons why the MSTA initiative to end rent control protections would harm our community by permanently exempting 1-4 unit buildings from rent control and granting complete vacancy decontrol to larger buildings giving landlords tremendous incentive to push out any tenant whose rent is less that $2500 (or perhaps $3000) a month.

The Appellate decision flies in the face of everything that all of us believed about the sanctity of our elections. How could any group march into a courtroom and present fabricated evidence as fact without challenge? How could the appeals court deny a person that they had allowed to intervene in a case the right to present proof that the lower court evidence wasn’t credible?

On November 5, you will have the opportunity to defend your friends, your neighbors and yourselves by voting no on the Hoboken Public Question intended to end rent control in Hoboken. The language of the question is confusing (intentionally designed that way by MSTA), but the only way to protect our community from this destructive developer group is to make sure that we all go to the polls and vote no.

You will hear a lot from these developers. They have the money to blitz the town with lots of false information. They will verbally attack some of our friends and neighbors directly. They will even try to tell you that a yes vote will maintain rent protections. It won’t.

In advance of all the dishonest talking points that MSTA will claim including, with a wry smirk, assurances that all current tenants will be protected if you vote their way, please ask yourselves the following questions:

What kind of city do you want Hoboken to be? Do you want it to be a town that only exists for the highest bidders? Do you want Hoboken to be a city of transience? Can Hoboken sustain itself when rents are so high that people are forced to move year after year, never able to put down roots, to join in neighborhood struggles, or even to discover what those struggles are?

This is exactly what MSTA wants: transient residents who don’t feel a connection to the community.

The push to capitalize on market value in Hoboken is already eviscerating what is really of value – the remnants of a unique blend of artists, musicians, working class folks, immigrants and newer committed neighbors without whom Hoboken will have none of its original substance and vitality. In order for our city to remain healthy and alive it is of the utmost importance that each and every one of us vote no on Hoboken’s anti-rent protection ballot question on Nov. 5.

It is amazing Mr. Gormally that you use the propaganda of channeling the devastation of superstore Sandy to promote your statement that property owners in Hoboken deserve a break. Yet you used the incidence of this hurricane to name people you claim were disenfranchised in Hoboken to vote in the election when most of them were not even Hoboken residents anymore. Actually that left around 36 people out of the 114 number used, (of course we must minus the 5 duplicates), to abuse the democratic process of voting in America since 36 people could not have changed the election results. Your clients must have a lot of money to pay you to set the election aside while using Sandy to promote your disingenuous concern for the voting public. I guess the 16, 444 other Hoboken voters who voted on the issue don't count.

Cheryl still cannot stop her quest. Even when the appellate division declared her arguments wholly without merit. After the devastation of superstore sandy, property owners in Hoboken deserve a break. There was no government bailout for the small owners who were devastated after this storm but Cheryl believes that HER RENT CONTROLLED APARTMENT is a government guaranteed right. I guess if I had someone else subsidizing my monthly living expense, I would try to protect it as well. However, rent controlled has been proven to be a failed economic policy. It depresses investment in real estate, hastens the decline of the quality of housing, and promotes rather than abates the shortage of housing.

Perhaps the most important reason to VOTE YES is that condo owners who thought they could live in their unit for a time and then rent it to someone without being concerned about rent control are now discovering that they are bound to charge a Pres conversion rent amount. Hundreds of units make it to the rental market this way every month, but the rents are in fact subject to the over broad and unconstitutional rent control ordinance.

Hoboken was only 52 votes away last year from fixing this problem. Now we have a second chance to correct this failed government policy! VOTE YES!

Actually, after Sandy, the tenants deserve a break! Landlords got help from fema, the banks, - tenants got nothing.

Perhaps the most important reason to VOTE NO is because msta has to resort to blatant lies to make their case.

Hoboken residents are really tired of your word-salad nonsense, Charlie. The lead judge Susan L. Reisner, married to Paul L. Schneider) who heard the appeal is married to a lawyer who is a lobbyist for Toll Bros, Khouvian, NJ Builders Assn, etc. She should have recused herself but that would have required a conscious and a respect for the law. Something that neither you, nor Judges Farrington or Reisner, appear to have.

You also benefited from the decision to not permit any new evidence submitted (at least not from Cheryl - I think you squeezed some new stuff in there). Had we been able to submit the affirmations from over 70 of the "114" provisional voters, (and who knows what will happen when the case goes to the NJ Supreme Court) who we can prove voted outside Hoboken because they lived outside Hoboken, you would have lost the appeal. And you may yet.

Hey Gormally, after admitting totally fraudulent, false evidence into a trial court and then AGAIN into the appeals court, do you really think anyone in Hoboken with a brain believes a word you say?

Let me clue you: THEY DON'T! Because they know you're a morally bankrupt fraudster, a pathological liar, and a cheat. Most of them think its time you cut your losses and get your fat ass out of Hoboken.

CherryTree

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September 29, 2013

I guess Ms. Fallick did a pretty good job of calling it like it is; otherwise, Gormally wouldn’t be spending time trying to discredit her. Why, Ms. Fallick even mentioned that these developers would be attacking people directly and look what we have here…an immediate attack on Ms. Fallick! Aside from that, it is also apparent that Mr. Gormally just can’t stop lying. Just as the letter says, the appellate division refused to allow Ms. Fallick to supplement the record with the proof that the evidence submitted by Gormally to the courts was false. Imagine an attorney submitting a list of names, claiming that they were a list a people that lived in Hoboken that were eligible to vote in Hoboken when the vast majority of the people named on that list did not live in Hoboken.

On November 5, 2013, it is of the utmost importance that the citizens of Hoboken send a message to the developer/real estate group that Gormally represents by voting NO on Hoboken Public Question #1. We must let them know that we will not allow developer/real estate investors to steal our elections, through either large campaign donations to vote-by-mail “specialists” (they contributed over 40K to one such specialist” in 2012) or, in the courtroom. ON NOVEMBER 5,VOTE NO ON HOBOKEN PUBLIC QUESTION #1.